10 Rillington Place

Synopsis

London, 1949. John Christie is an unassuming, middle-aged man who, along with his wife Ethel, lives in the ground-floor flat at 10 Rillington Place. His demeanor masks the fact of being a serial killer. His modus operandi is to act as a person with a medical background, lure unsuspecting women to his apartment on the pretense of curing them of some ailment, knock them unconscious with carbon monoxide gas, gain his sexual release through contact with the unconscious body, then strangle the victim dead before disposing of the body somewhere in the house or outside area. His next intended target is Beryl Evans, a young woman who has just moved into the top flat in the house. Beryl's husband, Tim Evans, is an illiterate man who likes to put on airs. Already with an infant daughter named Geraldine, the Evanses learn they are going to have another baby, which they cannot afford to have, nor can they afford to abort the pregnancy. This problem, on top of the constant issue of lack of money ...

London, 1949. John Christie is an unassuming, middle-aged man who, along with his wife Ethel, lives in the ground-floor flat at 10 Rillington Place. His demeanor masks the fact of being a serial killer. His modus operandi is to act as a person with a medical background, lure unsuspecting women to his apartment on the pretense of curing them of some ailment, knock them unconscious with carbon monoxide gas, gain his sexual release through contact with the unconscious body, then strangle the victim dead before disposing of the body somewhere in the house or outside area. His next intended target is Beryl Evans, a young woman who has just moved into the top flat in the house. Beryl's husband, Tim Evans, is an illiterate man who likes to put on airs. Already with an infant daughter named Geraldine, the Evanses learn they are going to have another baby, which they cannot afford to have, nor can they afford to abort the pregnancy. This problem, on top of the constant issue of lack of money ...

Tech specs

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by drj-12 10 / 10

Creepy film, but excellent!

10 Rillington Place is more than a classic film. It is frequently referred
to whenever the call for the death penalty is made in Britain. The notorious
miscarriage of justice i.e the hanging of Timothy Evans, an immature
half-wit, for the murder of his wife and child when it is almost universally
accepted that they perished at the hands of John "Reg" Christie, is one
which will always haunt the British legal system. When Christie was found
guilty and hanged as a serial killer of women, the body of Evans was exhumed
and reburied in consecrated ground but this did nothing to hide the
embarrassment of those who supported the death penalty.

The film itself is a dark and brooding masterpiece which depicts life in
post-war London perfectly. The grim, dirty, rain-washed Rillington Place in
Notting Hill was a seedy side-street which housed the poor but largely
respectable families which had survived the blitz. John Christie had moved
down from the North to find work in the capital but ill-health and a
penchant for petty crime prevented him from being successful.

Richard Attenborough plays the downtrodden but curiously arrogant Christie
to perfection. His voice almost a whisper as he lauds it over London's
underclasses. In fact Christie was not a landlord, as many believe, he was
merely a tenant who fancied himself to be a landlord and acted accordingly.
He also dreamed of being a doctor, with devastating consequences. His
treatment of the poor, subnormal Evans (John Hurt) and his beautiful but
foolish young wife, Beryl, (Judy Geeson) was centred around their desire for
an abortion - illegal in the UK until the late 1960s.

John Hurt is very good as the hapless Evans although his Welsh accent needed
refining. His look of wide eyed horror and disbelief is a sight to behold.
Geeson pouts and whinges and looks gorgeous: the kind of wife any man would
desire and yet the kind destined to irritate intensely.

The key to appreciating 10 Rillington Place is to have some idea of its
setting in British history. To wander in clueless will result in
disappointment. There is no gore or x-rated content of any kind and its slow
pace will infuriate many. Yet, as a snapshot of an England now gone and a
reminder of the folly of capital punishment it is a timeless classic worthy
of many viewings.

Reviewed by Mikew3001 10 / 10

Not sure if anyone has ever made a better film than this?

This British 1970's drama tells the life of the real London strangler John
Reginald Christie, a doctor and landlord who killed several of his female
patients in the 1940's and 1950's. Richard Attenborough plays Christie in a
rather silent, but very menacing and psychological way. Director Richard
Fleischer is not portraying a serial killer monster like Hannibal Lector,
but rather a boring and nice guy who turning to a mentally disturbed and
brutal serial killer.

The atmosphere in the dirty London suburbs is photographed in a very dark
and intense way, as most of the scenes take place in Christie's old back
street house. The calm music adds much atmosphere to the movie, and young
John Hurt plays the husband of one of the victims. A forgotten genre jewel
that is worth being discovered again, as it cannot be compared to many of
those stylish current serial killer TV and movie productions.

Reviewed by The_Void 8 / 10

Excellent film version of a true crime

There's a whole host of films from the great decade that was the
seventies that have gone on to not get the praise that they so rightly
deserve, and if one were to make a list of those films; 10 Rillington
Place would feature in a prominent position. The film follows the true
story of serial killer John Christie, who murdered a series of women in
the late forties. His modus operandi is to murder his victims with gas,
shortly before having sex with the corpse. Despite this shocking
premise, the film always sees fit to focus more on the reality of the
situation than the actual murders themselves. Despite not being
graphic, this actually makes the film more shocking as we are
constantly reminded of the things that go on behind what people allow
us to know about ourselves. The murderer in this story is just a normal
man. A nice man, in fact. People trust him, and even respect him; yet
despite all this, the man is a stone cold killer. The realistic way
that the story is approached, combined with the fact that these are
real events ensures that 10 Rillington Place is a morbidly fascinating
watch.

Richard Attenborough takes the lead role and does fantastically well
with it. His calm mannerisms and nonthreatening demeanour clash well
with the underlying evil of his character and we really can believe
that this man is a maniac. The film was made in the United Kingdom, I'm
proud to say, and this is obvious throughout. UK films have a certain
atmosphere about them, and although I didn't know that this movie was
homegrown before watching it; it soon became apparent. This style bodes
well with the theme of the film, as it's downtrodden and makes sure
that the film is firmly planted in the land in which the story took
place. The idea of an innocent man not only going down, but being
killed, for a crime he did not commit is shocking and the cold way that
it is presented in this film reflects the fact that it actually
happened and also gives it more of a degree of shock. On the whole, 10
Rillington Place is a film that shouldn't be missed by anyone. It's not
all that well known, but this is unfair considering the quality of it
and I wont hesitate to recommend this movie to people in the future.